


interlude. mission: purple hat. status: waiting for Agent Sousa.

by thesarcasticone



Series: case reports: astro ambassadors Z3T1 [8]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Adventures... at home, Astro Ambassadors, Day 7: Free Day, Established Relationship, F/M, Future Fic, Kid Fic, Post-Season/Series 07, dousy week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-28
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:20:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27764392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesarcasticone/pseuds/thesarcasticone
Summary: “Crap.”“Mamma, dollar.”She cursed inside her brain again, leaning down in order to scoop the highly skittish and frankly confused Phillipa from the ground. The sudden movement caused the toddler to give out a little yelp and a soft grin, which made Daisy's soul relax a bit. She was still the kid’s mother, and she still loved her like she had never imagined possible she could love someone and that had to count for something, right?--------Daisy's life has never been the most quiet and tranquil of lives, yet the past few months have proven to be quite the challenge.A glimpse into the hectic life, her life has become as she struggles to balance being an agent, a wife and a mother.
Relationships: Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Series: case reports: astro ambassadors Z3T1 [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956847
Comments: 11
Kudos: 49





	interlude. mission: purple hat. status: waiting for Agent Sousa.

**Author's Note:**

> Day 7: Free Day
> 
> This is the last fic I have written down, and I hope not the last time I visit this little verse of mine. 
> 
> It was a blast writing these down, so thank you to whoever organized Dousyweek! 
> 
> Set about five years after the series finale. 
> 
> Disclaimer: someone, I don't remember who, used the name Philippa as their daughter's name and for some strange reason I fell in love with idea. So I used the name here. 
> 
> As always, mistakes are my own.

Free day 

Suddenly, Jemma’s decision to leave SHIELD did not seem like such a far fetched idea. 

“Mamma!” 

Daisy inhaled and exhaled, allowing Pippa another yell before laying down her tablet and her thought process in order to attend to her three year-old’s needs. 

It normally wasn’t so stressful. It wasn’t normally so alone either. 

“Daddy said he left the purple one out. It’s pink.”

Sousa. 

“Wear the pink one, Pip. There’s no time to look for the other one, sweetie.”

There seemed to never be time anymore. It made Daisy chuckle, the tone of it bordering on being sardonic. Time, what she had once joked about had now come back to bite her in the ass. 

“But ma-”

“I’m sorry, Pip; but mom has to finish cracking this for uncle Mack, and your dad who should have been here, had to go get your aunt Kora’s butt out of trouble - _ again _ .”

Kora and Lila truly owed Daisy a babysitting night. 

Her daughter gave her a slight pout, one which Daisy attributed to her being a Sousa, for she was certain had the kid not the Sousa genes within her, it would have been a full blown pout with probably a few grunts and tantrums thrown in. Yet, all her daughter did was look at the pink hat her dad had left out for her, and diligently put it on her head, her warm chocolate eyes looking towards her mother, a sad look in them which Daisy cursed. 

She still needed to send Mack the fully decrypted file before noon, and it had been noon -she checked her watch, ten minutes ago.

“Crap.” 

“Mamma, dollar.”

She cursed inside her brain again, leaning down in order to scoop the highly skittish and frankly confused Phillipa from the ground. The sudden movement caused the toddler to give out a little yelp and a soft grin, which made Daisy's soul relax a bit. She was still the kid’s mother, and she still loved her like she had never imagined possible she could love someone and that had to count for something, right? 

“I know, Pip, I’ll give you two if you don’t tell dad I’m about to-” she started as she took out her SHIELD phone, popped in its base and called her director, kid still in her arms. 

It was an agreement they had arrived at together, back when Daisy had been pregnant with Phillipa. That they would not retire from their work, that they would work together and help each other in order to try and raise their daughter while trying to maintain their lives as agents. 

Because SWORD had been a success, and the second ship had been approved by the organization for takeoff right after Philipa would have been born. So Daisy had picked a team, and had picked a leader, and had gladly taken the role of earth-stationed supervisor. 

SWORD currently had three vessels out in service, while her very own Z3 remained grounded for the time being, while Kora took a much needed month off from space. 

Phillipa remained out of it all. No one outside their immediate circle of friends and close work relations knew about her. Everyone knew there was a Sousa junior running around Earth, yet very few had the pleasure of knowing they were a girl,  _ and _ named after Phil Coulson. 

Pip had never been to HQ, or remained near her parents when they would hologram in an emergency. She was kept as hidden as they could make her. It had been a joint decision, one which had been surprisingly easy to uphold. 

But three years had already gone by, and Kora had had to decide to go and be Agent Lila Hunter’s SO, and if her sister had proven to be jeopardy friendly- the young Hunter had proven to be even worse. 

Daisy had gotten the call that morning at around four, thankfully Pippa had not stirred from her sleep as Daisy had tried to calm Roy down from what had been a rambling mess of a call. Daniel had then answered her other phone, Mack’s voice coming through. 

Clearly frustrated and with sleep in both their eyes they had decided it would be Daniel the one to go and try to extract Kora and Hunter while Daisy stayed behind to keep Pip safe and try to decrypt the message and files Kora had managed to send Mack, before having been forced to go dark. 

It truly hadn’t been anything out of the ordinary. But Daisy had barely gotten two hours of rest, just having finished an assignment overseeing a negotiation regarding an abandoned Lake in Scotland which apparently had been secretly occupied by Veers for almost 2 centuries, and was now being settled by the New Asgardians. 

For months she had not been able to get a proper night’s rest. Whether it was a mission on Earth, her sister calling at strange hours with constant reports on the Z3 and its previous voyage, or Pip having a fever or a nightmare. Daisy felt as if she were losing her grip on her life. Pip got more and more quiet as the days passed and Daisy found herself collapsing after a day's work before getting the chance to play with her kid. 

Mack kept sending her files and messages to decrypt or code, May kept asking about the guest lecture she had promised to give one of her classes on Inhuman history and Jemma- Jemma kept calling her every other day to simply chat and trade kid stories, and even those few stolen hours felt like a burden now. 

She was collapsing. But Daisy never collapsed, she never stopped, had never not finished a mission, had never not reached her purpose, had never not delivered. 

“Agent Johnson -and mini Sousa.”

The toddler’s face lit up as she came face to face with her uncle Mack, her little hands trying to reach over to him. 

“Mack!” 

“Hey baby Tremors. Daisy, not that I’m not glad to see you both, but you do know I am still at HQ.”

Daisy knew it, but she also knew how to break into the security feed and how to erase this little venture. 

“Yeah, I’ll delete this later, I just needed to call in and she has been mopey all morning. Sousa left before she woke and got home after she went to sleep last night. I think she’s only seen us a little over two hours in the past few days.”

Pippa tried to wiggle herself out of her mother’s grasp, her chocolate eyes sparkling with delight at seeing Mack. It had been a good few weeks since the kid had last seen him, and out of every single one of her aunts and uncles, the girl had developed a soft spot for the SHIELD director. It usually drove Kora crazy. 

“Pip, it’s a hologram. Uncle Mack’s at work.” Daisy kissed her daughter’s head as she said so, her free hand grabbing her tablet where she had been decoding the message Mack had sent her. 

Phillipa waved at her uncle, and Daisy caught Mack’s soft grin and wave from the corner of her eyes. 

“Ol’ softie.”

“Watch it, Johnson, you’re on call.”

“Yeah, yeah. If you’re gonna hide behind that excuse, then let's talk shop. I’m almost done with the email you sent over, but there’s a page in here which is, unlike anything I’ve encountered. I've forwarded it to Hill on the Z5; she’s the best I’ve seen and the best I’ve got. And I know I said I would give you the evaluation before five today, but-”

“Yeah, you’ve got a busy morning.”

“Dad left the pink hat out, not the purple one.”

“A busy morning, a three year-old who misses her dad and a husband who-”

“Has secured both missing agents and is currently en route to HQ.”

Daisy let out a breath she had not known she had been holding in. They were fine. They were coming home. 

“Good, that’s- good.” She tried to downplay her excitement, but Mack’s smirk and all knowing gaze told Daisy she could not hide her emotions from him. 

“If you can hold on for like five minutes I could hover these over to you, while we run over the extraction plan for our mission next week. Because I won't be able to go back to HQ until after we raid Escondida.”

“Send the decryption when you can. Sousa’s intel today was good. Focus on coding the new Index. With the Rising Tide still out there we have only you as a line of defense, you’re the only one who has managed to track them down.”

“Yeah well, it helps when they still adhere to some of the same patterns they used tean years ago.”

Right, there was  _ that _ other thing she had to do. 

“Oh, and Johnson,”

“Yeah, director?”

“Don’t forget to erase this. As much as I love seeing her, we both know she shouldn’t appear in any of our records.”

“And it would make you look bad, going all soft and paternal.”

“Daisy,”

“Alright, alright. Signing off.”

“Bye Mack!” Pippa called out, her smile big. 

Daisy sighed as she disconnected the phone, laying another kiss on her daughter’s head, enjoying how Pip instantly snuggled close to her. 

“We have to go, kid. Grab your bag and don’t forget your-”

“Enoch!”

It still unnerved Daisy, hearing her daughter call out the name of the Chronicomm, but the monkey had been originally named by Alya, and the name had stuck with her own kid. 

Pippa came galavanting back to where Daisy sat waiting for her, monkey in hand, pink hat on head and matching pink rain boots on. 

Daisy couldn’t help but give out a smile, a tired but genuine one. How had she ever gotten so lucky as to have been given Pippa as a kid?

“Ready!” The girl giggled, extending her free arm towards her mother. Daisy picked her up with the ease and practice three years of motherhood had given her. 

“Let's go give Dr. Rupert something to talk about next week at dinner. Whadda ya say, kid?”

“Yip, yip!”

“That’s my girl.”

The ride to Pip’s pediatrician was not a long one, yet Daisy used the time to call in to the Z5 to get an update on the one file she had not been able to crack, all while trying to reach Daniel on the comms, Pippa helping out by screaming out her dad’s name every five minutes or so, followed by a quick giggle before returning to humming her favorite little tune. 

By the time they had arrived at the Hospital, Daisy had already gotten two copies of the encrypted letter and had received a coded message from Daniel and a very annoying call from her sister. 

Pippa had only kept happily rambling along about all the things she was planning on doing once she saw her father. 

Because she hadn’t seen him in two days, just as she had not seen Daisy for the same amount of time before that morning. Daniel had been the last of the two to have stayed an entire morning with the kid before both had been pulled away because of work. 

It hadn’t been so hectic, not in the beginning. 

They had found a nice balance to their lives, with Daisy leading SWORD on Earth and taking care of basic operations from home, rotating with Sousa for field work. That having been established, had meant they had never been purposefully pulled into the field at the same time. It had happened, once or twice, because they were both high ranking agents, and Daisy was still their strongest asset, with Kora’s powers being far too volatile, even when under control. 

But something was brewing, something was slowly building up between worlds and on Earth. Their missions had been getting tougher, longer and much more dangerous. Both Daisy and Sousa got called in almost everyday now, not to mention they were SWORD’s commanders and had to oblige to what their roles entailed. 

Their lives had suddenly gone from chaotic, to hecticly chaotic. 

Daisy felt drained. Daniel felt exhausted. And they still had Pip to take care of. 

Phillipa Sousa, who carried her father’s good nature and temper, and her mother’s kind soul and inhuman genes. 

“Um, Agent Johnson? Do you copy? Ths is Agent Hill.”

“Why is-”

“Pip, it’s quiet time, let mom just-” Daisy silenced the back of her car as she answered the call, her chest suddenly tightening as she took in Hill’s tentative tone. 

“Hill, what is it?”

Z5 was currently two galaxies away, trying to reconnect with the Aldarians. So far, the eastern SWORD ship had been having a pretty decent voyage. 

From her rear view mirror Daisy could see her kid, her eyes lost in a world of fantasy and yet filled with questions Daisy had hoped her children would never have a reason to ask. But no matter how much she tried, it seemed she just couldn’t be the type of parent Philipa deserved. She was such an easy going kid, with wide, curious and understanding eyes, it unnerved Daisy just how much like her father she was. It was not normal for a three year-old to offer sympathetic glances towards a fizzled almost forty year-old woman. 

“We’re about to enter Splik territory, they keep asking for Quake, we need some kind of help here.”

Daisy took advantage of the silence filter and cursed, honking her car in the process. 

“Tell the little weasel of a tyrant, that Quake is not his to mandate, nor SHIELD’s, which is with whom he negotiated his little piece of Venezuela with. Anything on the decryption I sent over?”

“Daisy-” Her name came through static, but just as she had picked it up, she lost the connection. 

Sousa. 

“Still working on it, it’s unlike anything I’ve seen, but with Guy and Torres working on it, it seems we might be getting something. Any input you have would also be welcomed.”

“Sure, I’ll send over what I can.”

Why? She already had ten thousand things to do, she did not need another task to complete. 

Hill signed off and Daisy tried to locate her husband, but nothing came through. He tried her sister’s comm, but got the same response. 

Pippa smiled at her, her still baby-like grin easing Daisy's inward storm. 

It made her reorganize her brain and remember her priorities. Get Pip home, locate Sousa, message Mack, message Hill, try to not pass out. 

“Mama?” 

“Yes, Pip?” Daisy breathed out.

“Are you gonna tell me what  _ Inhuman _ means now?”

She slammed on the brake and nearly choked on her own saliva, the entire feat making her kid  _ giggle _ . 

“When you're a bit older, kid. You know that.”

“Dad says I get older every day.”

\-----------

“Sounds like you had an eventful day.”

“Eventful, yeah, that’s one way to put it. Chaotic is another. Shitty also comes to mind.”

“Shitty is a good word.”

“Yes, yes it is.”

“But I’m going to steal it to describe my day, for shitty is just what it was. Remind me to never let Kora near my Sharp collection.”

Daisy squinted as she took the offered beer bottle from her husband’s hand.

“The books?”

Daniel only nodded as he took out another beer for himself, his eyes tired, yet diligently running over his daughter’s sleeping form. 

“Do I want to know?”

“Want, probably not. Need? Yes, I’m afraid it’s going to go on official SWORD records which means-”

“I have to sign and review them. Great, another thing to add to my infinite to do list.” She groaned, tired after the whirlwind of a day they had both had. 

His soft chuckle, almost as tired as she felt, instantly served its purpose of easing her buzzing mind. She took a swig of her beer and allowed her head to fall onto his chest with a resounding sigh. In an instant, his arms came to wrap around her, with his lips landing a soft kiss on her head. 

It was amazing, how his mere presence was enough for her mind to settle. For years now, her life had grown far beyond what Daisy would have ever thought possible, but that growth hadn’t happened by her own will and merit- it had been a joined effort, and thus needed a joined upkeep. She couldn’t handle everything her life consisted of, by herself; not when it had been built by both Sousa and her. It had been built by both of them, it needed both of them to be able to upkeep it. 

“Last time you let me run after Kora by myself;  _ especially _ when Hunter is involved,  _ and _ when Roy has a direct line to my comm.”

Daisy chuckled, her laugh muffled by the fact she still had half of her face buried in his chest, enjoying the smell of him and his always steady presence. 

“Why does Roy have a direct line to your comm?”

“I have no idea, can you please get him out?”

“Gladly.”

“Thank you.”

“Right after I finish with the decoding and the recoding and the evaluations and Pip’s lunch for tomorrow and today’s review, and-”

“Woah, woah, woah-” Daniel gently grabbed her frame and made sure to lock eyes with her before he continued on, his own tired face a reflection of her exhaustion. They truly were a one of a kind pair. 

“You may be SWORD’s director, but I am your second and have as much authority as you do. And Pip, last time I checked, the kid was still half a Sousa and I owe her at least an entire day of undivided attention. I owe both of you an entire day of undivided attention.”

“Mhm, I’m not going to argue against that. Convince Mack to give us a day off and I’m all yours.”

“Tempting.”

Daisy chuckled, tired, but mirthful. He wouldn’t, because she wouldn’t, because they both had responsibilities they couldn’t postpone for too long, and they both knew it. It was nice to dream and escape in their little fantasy as they each tried to remind the other they weren’t alone in this, that they had each other. 

“I code, you take care of the reports?”

“And I’m on Pippa watch until you finish.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too. Now, we really need to talk about your sister and -”

Daisy shook her head, a firm movement, making Daniel furrow his eyes in question. 

“No, Kora can wait. Everything can fucking wait. You went dark today, and I had to handle a skittish Philippa around town, and I just want- I just need-”

And of course he understood, and of course he tightened his grip around her as he moved in to kiss her, firm, and tired, and loving, and exactly what Daisy had been craving since she had been woken up by Mack. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
